The latest issue of New Yorker magazine claimed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was subjected to the CIA's harshest interrogation methods while he was held in secret prisons around the world for more than three years.

Sources told the New Yorker that Mohammed claimed that, while in CIA custody, he was placed in his own cell, where he remained naked for several days. He was questioned by an unusual number of female handlers, perhaps as an additional humiliation. He has alleged that he was attached to a dog leash, and yanked in such a way that he was propelled into the walls of his cell. Sources say that he also claimed to have been suspended from the ceiling by his arms, his toes barely touching the ground. The pressure on his wrists evidently became exceedingly painful.

International Committee of the Red Cross has called treatment of Mahammed and many other detainees 'tantamount to torture'.

Meanwhile the Washington Post in a report stated that Mohammed confessed to taking part in 31 of the world's most dramatic terrorist attacks when he appeared at a Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing at Guantanamo, and he presented officers at the hearing with a document detailing his alleged torture at the hands of the CIA. That document has been classified.

The CIA techniques have come under harsh criticism from human rights groups who argue that they are abusive and torturous, especially when used in combination over long periods of time. President Bush last month signed an executive order that requires the CIA to treat detainees humanely, but a classified list of techniques that are approved for the agency's use has been kept from public view, the paper said.